


So Help Me, Mahal

by Lasgalendil



Category: The Hobbit (Jackson Movies), The Hobbit - All Media Types, The Hobbit - J. R. R. Tolkien, The Lord of the Rings (Movies), The Lord of the Rings - All Media Types, The Lord of the Rings - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: Bearded Dwarf Women, Dwarf Courting, Dwarf Culture & Customs, Dwarf/Elf Relationship(s), Elf Culture & Customs, F/F, F/M, Interspecies, Interspecies Awkwardness, Interspecies Relationship(s), Interspecies Romance, Interspecies Sex, Meet the Family, Meeting the Parents, Mother-Son Relationship, Motherhood, One True Pairing, True Love
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-04-27
Updated: 2015-07-02
Packaged: 2018-03-25 23:48:40
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,379
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3829429
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lasgalendil/pseuds/Lasgalendil
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Yla's son has never been easy to deal with. More than once she's nearly ripped out her beard! But even a crusty, gruff Dwarf mother will forgive her only son much when it comes to heartbreak and love.</p>
<p>...only this time, Gimli's gone returned from war with an Elf in tow.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [Sansûkh](https://archiveofourown.org/works/855528) by [determamfidd](https://archiveofourown.org/users/determamfidd/pseuds/determamfidd). 



Yla was a mother.

That is not to say she was a mother foremost or firstly. She had been (and would be, Mahal willing) many things in her long life: daughter, sister, apprentice, master, smith, journeyman, and wife. She had had many lives—first in the Blue Mountains, then the long journey East, Erebor, some wanderings in Rhûn before finally settling down into a comfortable middle age. But Yla was a mother—had been a mother, now, for more than half her life—and though she had been and would remain (Mahal willing) many things, she had found in the last 160 years nothing quite occupied her mind or passions as much as that dratted young Dwarrow she’d once nursed at her own breasts.

Ah, Gimli! Would that he were still young enough she could put the fear of Mahal in him!

But no, her son was a grown Dwarrow now, a Master of the Smithy, a Dwarf of Many Journeys, and a warrior in his own right after his father. And knowing his father—his father!—made her all the more resigned. That great fool Gloín (she loved him to pieces, and would for many years yet, Mahal willing) had been far to lenient on the subject of his only son. Why, he’d nearly taken the boy on that ill-fated quest if it hadn’t been for her intervention, and the thought of her young son laying beneath the stone alongside his cousins still caused her to shiver. Then leaving him in Rivendell! Among those Elves! To undertake a quest of even graver purpose! Oh, she had been furious, had chased him round  and round her smithy upon his return, hadn’t slept in his bed for weeks after the news. But she loved the old fool (and the young fool), and found it hard to stay angry at him long even when it was her firstborn son he had abandoned to those wretched Elves.

And speaking of wretched Elves…

Yla had returned to his bed, had very nearly forgiven him, what with all the carnage of war brought upon them from the Enemy’s stronghold in Dol Guldor when the news came. The Enemy had fallen! Yet in the days and weeks to come there was no fucking for them. She and Glóin both wore their beards, their braids in mourning, And that old fool had returned running—running, at his age!—huffing and puffing from the wreckage and repairs of Dale to tell her the news. Her son, her Inûdoy was alive!

(Yla had hardly let him leave his bed for days after that.)

But that news was quickly tainted. Rumors. Whispers. Kinsmen journeying South and returning from the White City brought back troubling reports. But they were rumors, whispers, nothing more. Surely not, she had scoffed. Surely not. Her Gimli had been young when he had taken his first tumble, but so resembled his father in both voice and appearance that she had been long since resigned to early (and many) beddings with their many inkings and piercings. That is not to say she entirely approved. She had, on more than one occasion, chased an underserving suitor from between her son’s rumpled sheets!

Still the rumors came. And her son did not. The year wore on. She received news, but still, still! he did neither write nor return home.

And when he did, it was on a horse, seated behind a beaded, braided Elf no less! Arms clasped tightly about his waist as if they were love-making even now, as if he had no shame!

“Adad, Amad…” Yla’s son had sighed. “This is…oh, fuck it. You know who this is.” And Thranduil’s get had just sat there smiling blithely as if it was the most wonderful thing in the world, calling her “Naneth” and greeting that great goat Glóin as “Ada”—and that meaning, at least, was clear enough.

And so begrudgingly, begrudgingly she invited her son’s Elf (wife? husband? Mahal be merciful!) into their home. The neighbors had already been whispering, and King Thorin (son of Dáin, not Oakenshield the True King Under the Mountain, may his hammer be swift, may Mahal keep his Soul)’s eyebrows had raised rather considerably, but this was her son, her Inudoy, her Gimli, so despite her shared reservations she had little choice.

_Oh, my son. A passing fancy in a time of war I could understand._ The Elf was, in all regards, truly pretty. _But to bead? And braid? That is another matter entirely._


	2. Chapter 2

Yla was a mother.

A smith, craftsman, tinkerer, wife, daughter, friend and warrior (when need be), but a mother. Always—since the moment that hairy, squaling infant had left her body to the moment her bearded boy returned from a year-long quest with his strange (“husband” was perhaps still too strong a term—he was no Dwarf, after all!) bedfellow—she had been and would remain a mother. Gimli’s mother.

She had never dreamed of glory, of being a renown warrior like Azaghâl. Yes, she could kill. It was a Dwarf’s duty to defend herself, her family, her treasures and her clan. Of orcs she had killed countless. Of men, fewer. Of Dwarves—she had taken lives, when called to do so, Petty Dwarves wandering the wild, plundering who and where they may without respect for the tenants of Mahal, although she took no pleasure in it. When called to, she could protect herself and her own, and woe betide the one who sought to take her unawares! Even now her axe was sharp and sure and true, her hammer swift, and many of the orcs and Easterlings had come to know it during that final battle under the Mountain and the Trees.

She knew her skills on the forge were worthy, that she had honor before Mahal, but she had honed her craft as a young Dwarrowdam in the Blue Mountains, smithing for Men and repairing or making their crude tools, or repairing wagons in the great wains out East when Erebor had been reclaimed and the markets of Esgaroth flowed again with riches. The things she crafted were tools and trinkets, useful and hearty, with a rough, rustic beauty from their forced simplicity and ingenuity. But they were never treasures, she would be no Narvi, no Telchar, no Gamil Zirak (although she could claim him, at least, as an ancestor!).

She had been on many a Journey, from the Blue Mountains to the Iron Hills, and even into Rhûn on the spice-wains so long ago. She’d once dreamed of silks and rice-wines, oils and perfumes, of an industry spanning the Northa and East of this Middle-Earth, but the Eastern roads grew dangerous and the shadow of Dol Guldur long, and she had her people and the halls of Erebor to protect…and a son to see married. It wasn’t as if at that age Gimli had been one to be wed! She fell to investing instead, as her mother before her, insuring and financing the Great Wains as they road East, collecting perhaps fewer of the riches yet with fewer of the risks, leaving those with less kin and more daring to take the long treks into the sunrise, to return perhaps wealthy and storied…or not at all. 

Yet. And. Still. Yla was a mother. Gimli’s mother. And that, she supposed, was how she would be remembered, if indeed her people were remembered at all in this new, strange world of Men. She feared the Dwarves would fade, as the Elves were fading, and that in the many years to come the only reason they may be remembered at all was her son’s place in their short histories.

Gimli. Her Gimli. He would be remembered. As Durin, as Azaghâl, as Thorin (may his hammer be swift, may Mahal keep his soul) before him he would be remembered!

And yet.  
…and yet.  
He was her son. Her firstborn. Her only. Her Inûdoy. 

To love—to bed, to (Mahal help her!) wed an Elf—the Thranduiling, no less!—was a strange thing indeed. That her own son—her Gimli!—should be remembered throughout the ages and find honor in the Halls of Mahal among the Heros of Old…now that was another thing entirely!


End file.
